Is there anything more fascinating (and understandable) than commodity pricing for staple foods being a major political issue? Of course onion prices matter to the people! Still, there’s something remarkably startling about the headline (and the fact of the matter).

Education is our #1 anti-poverty strategy in the USA. It’s successes are all functionally longer-term, so what happens when it’s the short-term effects of poverty that are undermining that strategy? So many education arguments are framed in the context of the ability of the schoolhouse to educate successfully in spite of poverty, when a more broadbased approach seems to the sort of approach that you could get consensus around.

Back to food and food cultures — UNESCO has already designated several culinary traditions – Mexican, Turkish, Mediterranean, and French – for world heritage status. Seems reasonable for Japan to be next.

I can’t stress how much I enjoy Neil Gaiman’s ode to the importance of literature in education. It pains me however that these questions are still “open” in many ways. Excerpt:You’re also finding out something as you read vitally important for making your way in the world. And it’s this: The world doesn’t have to be like this. Things can be different.

National education statistics have such state-by-state variability built into them. For what it’s worth, we see some very similar things in urban education — every city school system has a high degree of inconsistency built into it.

Solid article reminded us of some of the historical factors that went into the structuring of the US teaching profession, and addressing the current discussions about how to reformat the profession. I’m not sure that we’re succeeding in turning teaching into a better profession – if anything the popular fixes are about optimizing turnover. EXCERPT:“To improve the quality of teaching,” Ingersoll says, you need to “improve the quality of the teaching job.” And, “If you really improve that job… you would attract good people and you would keep them.””